Sportsmanship Captured at NCAA Cross Country Championships

In the long finishing stretch of Saturday’s NCAA Cross Country Championships in Terre Haute, Indiana, Baylor’s Annie Dunlap, who had gone out aggressively in the race, began to wobble. At first, it looked like she might be able to make it to the finish line unassisted, but with less than 50 meters remaining, she fell to the ground. She tried to get up and run, or even walk, across the finish line, but she fell two more times.

As Dunlap, a freshman, fell for the third time, with runners streaming by her, her sophomore teammate, Madie Zimmerman, came up from behind, helped Dunlap to her feet, and assisted her to the finish. In the final strides of the race, Minnesota’s Kate Bucknam, who didn’t know either of the Baylor runners, grabbed Dunlap’s other arm and helped Zimmerman get Dunlap across the finish line, where she immediately received medical attention.

Baylor coach Todd Harbour was farther up the course and though he could see that Dunlap’s finish was going to be a struggle, he didn’t see her collapse. “Had I been closer to her I probably would have jumped over the fence myself and stopped her,” said Harbor, who also called Dunlap a “tough young lady,” and reported that she is doing okay following the incident.

Those who view the video of Dunlap’s finish might question why no one else stopped to help her. The NCAA has a rule against providing assistance to any competitor inside the “competition area.” The moment that Zimmerman helped Dunlap, Dunlap was considered to have received assistance, and she was ultimately disqualified and removed from the results.

Zimmerman said that as soon as she saw Dunlap struggling, she wanted to help. “We've been through lots of hard workouts together and always help each other finish strong, and she deserved to finish the race at Nationals," wrote Zimmerman in a message to Runner’s World Newswire. "Disqualification never crossed my mind, it was all about getting her through the finish."

Minnesota’s Bucknam agreed that the desire to help was instinctual. “I didn't really think about helping her, I just did it," said Bucknam, whose father, Chris Bucknam, is the head coach of Arkansas’ men’s cross country and track & field teams. "I saw her stumbling toward the line with her teammate maybe 20 yards back, and knew they needed help. It was a tough race; I just wanted the pain to end for all of us sooner than later."

There have been several high profile recent cases of high school runners helping one another across the finish line of races, including a recent story out of North Dakota, but this instance was less common in that it happened within the intense environment of an NCAA Championship race.

“It does not surprise me at all that Kate would do that. She is all about team and loves the sport," wrote Minnesota coach Sarah Hopkins in an email to Newswire. "She saw someone struggling and tried to lend an arm to get her to the end. This was her first national meet, and I am sure that somewhere in her head she thought how awful it would feel to not finish, so wanted to keep anyone from feeling that.”

Hopkins said that while she never explicitly discusses the idea of helping a competitor with the athletes she coaches, “We try to emphasize team first and thinking about the big picture, and not just about yourself…At the end of the day college athletics are about teaching life lessons.”

Zimmerman said that while people have expressed their gratitude for her actions on Saturday, she was just in the right place at the right time to help. “I know there are many other girls who would have done the same thing for their teammates or any other runner if they had the chance," said Zimmerman, who also thanked Bucknam for her selflessness. "It's what the sport is all about: giving it your all and helping out teammates."

None of the three runners had her best race on Saturday, with Bucknam and Zimmerman finishing 239th and 240th, but Bucknam said it was important for all three runners to make it across the finish line.

“I feel grateful to have had the opportunity to help a sister in my sport out," said Bucknam. "Every runner in that race sacrificed so much to get to there, and I know all three of us had a rough race. The least we deserved was to finish, and I wasn't going to finish without her.”

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